A Publication of the Foundation for Landscape Studies A Journal of Place Volume ııı | Number ı | Fall 2007 Essays: The Landscapes of Robert Moses 3 Elizabeth Barlow Rogers: Robert Moses and the Transformation of Central Park Adrian Benepe: From Playground Tot to Parks Commissioner: My Life with Robert Moses Carol Herselle Krinsky: View from a Tower in the Park: At Home in Peter Cooper Village Elizabeth Barlow Rogers: Robert Moses and Robert Caro Redux Book Reviews 18 Reuben M. Rainey: Pilgrimage to Vallombrosa: From Vermont to Italy in the Footsteps of George Perkins Marsh By John Elder Elizabeth Barlow Rogers: Daybooks of Discovery: Nature Diaries in Britain 1770–1870 By Mary Ellen Bellanca Nature’s Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick By Jenny Uglow Calendar 23 Contributors 23 Letter from the Editor his issue of tenements, he cleared slums or New York City Housing in general, and the New York Site/Lines contin- but destroyed neighbor- Authority ownership, the City Planning Commission ues the reassess- hoods. The benefit of his land they occupy is not sub- in particular. He never saw Tment of the career parks has remained essen- ject to the market forces that himself as other than a of Robert Moses tially unchallenged, although normally drive real estate pragmatic enabler of public initiated earlier this year their creation as linear development. They remain works, the man who “got with Robert Moses and the appendages to highways has islands set apart from the things done.” Private-sector Modern City: The Transforma- been criticized. rest of a city that dynamical- economic development was tion of New York, the tripar- Inevitably, the forces of ly rebuilds itself as long as not part of his purview. tite exhibition curated by political and cultural change there is a greater return on Instead, he built things for Hilary Ballon and its accom- and popular reaction served capital to be had on a given which he could obtain public panying collection of schol- to disempower this proud parcel of land. funds: roads, bridges, parks, arly essays. and arrogant public servant. Moses made the most of and subsidized housing. Moses’s grasp and reten- His authority to dramatically a remarkable opportunity to In this issue of Site/Lines, tion of power, reinforced by alter the metropolitan land- imprint New York with his we focus on the ways in his autocratic nature, scape was repudiated. Yet his multiple visions. Unlike pre- which Moses’s creation of enabled him to be the pri- legacy endures because of its sent-day New Orleans, a city facilities for public recre- mary agent reshaping New continuing practical value. in near paralysis with regard ation altered the landscape York in the mid-twentieth Without its transportation to its rebuilding plans, New of Central Park and the rest century. Anticipating post- component, the city would York’s circumstances during of New York City. Through World War II growth in cease to function. most of the forty years the eyes of one longtime automobile ownership and It also endures by its very Moses was in office favored tenant we look at life in the movement of goods by nature. Certain elements of his array of accomplish- Peter Cooper Village, his first truck, he stitched the city to the urban fabric are inher- ments. During the Great large-scale housing project its hinterlands with bridges ently resistant to change. Depression federal public and the prototype for his and highways but ignored Arterial systems represent a works programs helped fund Whitestone Bridge, July 1940. vanguard of urban America’s transformation of other mass transportation and transgenerational infrastruc- his impressive construction progress into the modern areas of residential cityscape shipment by rail. A Progres- ture that invites repair but agenda as parks commis- But these alone were not age. into superblocks of high-rise sive Era reformer who seldom alteration. Moses’s sioner. After the Second sufficient to affect the city’s For all the far-reaching housing. His role in the deplored the city’s squalid roads and bridges are World War the nation transformation. Four other grandeur of his ambitions conversion of New York embedded in New York’s enjoyed a healthy peacetime factors were key: the vision and achievements as a mas- into an automobile-served On the Cover: municipal form. Parks, economy, the city and region to conceive large-scale pro- ter builder, Moses did not metropolis is a story we Robert Moses at the dedication although sometimes were experiencing popula- jects, the ingenuity to devise pursue a comprehensive leave to others. of the Osborn Gates, Central Park, encroached upon, are also tion growth, and the Housing financing, the leadership planning vision in the con- June 15, 1953. part of the unchanging met- Act of 1949 and the Trans- capable of directing the ventional sense. He scorned ropolitan footprint. In portation Act of 1956 created political will, and the ability municipal planning boards Photo Credits: addition, Moses’s low- and large sums of available to influence public opinion. Cover, pages 2–9, and 13–14, City of middle-income residential capital that state legislatures Together these things spelled Elizabeth Barlow Rogers New York Parks and Recreation, projects are for the most part could disperse to cities. power. Historical circum- Editor courtesy of Jonathan Kuhn, Director immune to the forces of stances and attributes of Art and Antiquities. Pages 10–11, change. Protected by their unique to Moses combined Central Park Conservancy, courtesy original legal arrangements to put New York City in the of Sara Cedar Miller, Central Park Historian and Photographer. Page 16, courtesy of Alfred A. Knopf. 2 The Landscapes of Robert Moses Following on the heels of the 1893 World’s Columbian Central Park a place for active recreation. However, instead of Exposition in Chicago, where Daniel Burnham’s monumental allowing sports to take place by simply abandoning the old vision for the fairgrounds fostered a neoclassical style of archi- regulations as they had done, he dedicated portions of the tecture and landscape design, a new generation of architects park to specific activities: lawns became bowling and croquet Robert Moses and the Transformation of Central Park launched the City Beautiful movement. Its legacy in Central greens and meadows were turned into ball fields. Robert Moses enlarged and altered the New York City parks system Park is due in part to two newspaper moguls, William Discontinuing the tradition of skating on the natural ice of with a single goal: the provision of recreation facilities. There was Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. The antithesis of Vaux’s Central Park’s Pond and Lake, he built a permanent rink. an inevitable landscape design dichotomy when these were inserted Picturesque architecture, Hearst’s grandiose 1913 Maine At the time Moses came to office, the only playground in into existing historic parks. In this essay, Elizabeth Barlow Rogers Monument rises above the southwest entrance of Central Park, the park was one created in 1926 near Seventh Avenue and discusses the origins and fate of Central Park’s Moses heritage and the 1916 Pulitzer Fountain ornaments Grand Army Plaza 63rd Street, a gift from the philanthropist August Heckscher. from her perspective as the first Central Park administrator and at the southeast corner. In September 1935 nineteen fenced-off playgrounds with large founding president of the Central Park Conservancy Central Park, however, changed little in its overall appear- sandboxes – “places where children can dig” as Moses charac- ance during that time except for the wear and tear it received terized these then-novel features – were opened near park Before Moses: 1858–1934 from hosting an increasing number of celebrations and group entrances. In October of the following year, three more play- or the past thirty-five years landscape historians have activities. The onslaught of automobile traffic by the 1920s grounds were added. Enthusiastically adopted by mothers and been reviving the reputation of Frederick Law Olmsted transformed its pastoral character more completely. While the children, they were touted by Moses as a way to preserve the (1822–1903) and Calvert Vaux (1824–1895), the designers park’s naturalistic landscape had its defenders, increasingly it surrounding scenery. To further discourage romping on the Fof the Greensward Plan for Central Park and the came to be seen as a site for monuments and other encroach- grass, he encircled lawns with pipe rail fencing, posted “Keep founders of the landscape architecture profession in ments. Several bizarre proposals were put forth, including a off the Grass” signs, and made infractions of this rule punish- America. For the last twenty-five years the park itself has landing field for aircraft, a track for horse races, a central fire able by fine. enjoyed a period of restoration and good management station, a burial ground for war heroes, an opera house, and a Overlooking the Concert Ground on the Mall, the Casino through the coordinated efforts of the New York City Depart- series of trenches commemorating the 1916 Battle of Verdun. designed by Vaux as an eatery for unescorted female visitors ment of Parks and the Central Park Conservancy. This is but These multiple, unrelated proposals were symptomatic of had become a restaurant for both sexes. With the addition of a the latest chapter in the park’s checkered 150-year history . the civic leadership’s failure to understand either the park’s dance floor in the 1920s, it became a popular nightclub Central Park was conceived as a place where city dwellers scenic or recreational purposes. In 1934 this state of affairs patronized by the Tammany Hall mayor, playboy, and song- could promenade on foot or parade in carriages, enjoying the came to a decisive halt.